as a teenager I got into the habit of listening to the string quartets of Bela Bartok-which I found slightly cacophonous --
but still enjoyed-while doing my homework. Somehow tuning out those discordant tones helped me focus on, say, the chemical equation for ammonium hydroxide.
Years later, when I found myself writing articles on deadline for the New York Times, I remembered that early drill in ignoring Bartok. At the Times I labored away in the midst of the science desk, which in those years occupied a classroom-sized cavern into which were crammed desks for the dozen or so science journalists and a half dozen editors.
There was always a Bartok-ish hum of cacophony. Nearby there might be three or four people chatting; you'd overhear the near end of a phone conversation-or several-as reporters interviewed sources; editors shouted across the room to ask when an article would be ready for them. There were rarely, if ever, the sounds of silence.
And yet we science writers, myself among them, would reliably deliver our ready-to-edit copy right on time, day after day. No one ever pleaded, Everyone please be quiet, so we could concentrate. We all just redoubled our focus, tuning out the roar.
as a teenager I got into the habit of listening to the string quartets of Bela Bartok-which I found slightly cacophonous --
but still enjoyed-while doing my homework. Somehow tuning out those discordant tones helped me focus on, say, the chemical equation for ammonium hydroxide.
Years later, when I found myself writing articles on deadline for the New York Times, I remembered that early drill in ignoring Bartok. At the Times I labored away in the midst of the science desk, which in those years occupied a classroom-sized cavern into which were crammed desks for the dozen or so science journalists and a half dozen editors.
There was always a Bartok-ish hum of cacophony. Nearby there might be three or four people chatting; you'd overhear the near end of a phone conversation-or several-as reporters interviewed sources; editors shouted across the room to ask when an article would be ready for them. There were rarely, if ever, the sounds of silence.
And yet we science writers, myself among them, would reliably deliver our ready-to-edit copy right on time, day after day. No one ever pleaded, Everyone please be quiet, so we could concentrate. We all just redoubled our focus, tuning out the roar.
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